


drowning in honey, stingless

by angrylizardjacket (ephemeralstar)



Series: And All The Queen's Men 'verse [4]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018)
Genre: Drowning Metaphors, Drug Mentions, F/M, Stylistically Weird, please give it a chance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-25
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-11-05 10:46:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17917295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralstar/pseuds/angrylizardjacket
Summary: Giselle’s life is a series of sensations and struggles, more often than not, alone.





	drowning in honey, stingless

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not ask me what this is I do not know, just read it and enjoy it if you please. Warning for drug use.
> 
> Disclaimer: ‘drowning in honey, stingless’ is a quote from Evelyn Waugh.

Sometimes it’s like moving through a haze, through a dream, everything melts away when she asks, everyone around dances to her heartbeat; the world waits for no man, but she is no man and it would come to a grinding halt at her insistence. Not that there hasn’t been push back, not that her reputation, her skin colour, her gender, hasn’t garnered her scorn in a day and genre popularised by pretty, white boys; her life wasn’t handed to her on a silver platter, but she still manages to act like it was. Sometimes she forgets it’s an act.

The choice comes when she’s nineteen; she deludes herself into thinking it’s not nepotism, that it’s not favoritism, that she can’t see the shadow of her father’s influence puppeteering the executives offering her a contract, the chance to make something of her future and of herself. They pry her from her last name, as if the world won’t know where she came from, whose legacy she stands in the shadow of; they monetize her isolation for themselves, build her brand around Giselle  _alone._ It’s  _easy_ to act aloof and detached, to build herself up on her own merits, and bury the memory of who she once was.

Over the years, best friends were replaced with ‘ _yes_ ’ men, doing anything to make her smile, anything to keep her singing. She got friends, of course she’s still got friends, but she knows they love the idea of her, they love her name and the fame it garners, more than they love her. People from university, people from high school, people from before all of this, all of whoever she is now, they turned fickle, or they disappeared. Except John, but things are so different now. They’re not nineteen anymore.

And perhaps sometimes when she looks at bands, looks at friends, looks at the way real people actually seem to care about each other, there’s a gnawing sensation at her heart, a loneliness she can’t quite put into words. There’s a bubble around her, and everyone else likes to pretend that she can’t see out, can only see the world as gold as they’ve tried to tint it, to keep her ignorant to the critics who are cruel for the sake of being cruel, or even those who offer genuine critique amid their criticisms of the things she cannot change. She still sees the world, it’s hate and love, in equal measure, but they want her drowning in honey, stingless,  _alone_.

A new choice comes when she’s twenty four-  _reach out_. It’s easier now than it was when she began; she wasn’t a pushover then and she’s not a pushover now, but it still takes  _work_. To reach out professionally was the easy part, the shallow business transaction of ‘ _I want to cover your song_ ’ being as simple as it sounds, easier still when she’s told to go direct to them, to ask without preamble.  Except she’s met with four smiles, well, three genuine smiles and whatever Roger’s doing with his face, and the salt crust on her slowly calcifying heart might just begin to crack.

The mask she puts on for the world, as shiny as diamond and twice as cold, is a familiar discomfort, an itch she’s used to, and she feels naked without it, speaking to these people like friends, like those who understand, at least in part, her position. It’s hard to let them in, but the world sharpens around her like it hasn’t in years, she still makes herself see a haze of rose gold but she feels  _awake_ like she hasn’t in a long time, touch starved like she can’t bring herself to admit out loud. John is proud, prouder than she expected him to be in the face of all she’s left behind of herself from when he knew her; around him, and  _only_ around him, she can face who she once was, admit that she misses it. Can admit that she misses it, and still smile.

Freddie’s there, filling the cracks in her heart with glitter for grout because he knows,  _he knows_ , that critics think that humanity and weakness are one in the same; he’s seen Giselle’s real smile and he’ll help her hide it if it means he’ll get to see it again.

And Roger? She  _knows_ she’s competitive, knows she’s brash and loud and far too human, and he seems determined to pull those qualities from her with both hands; he makes her feel alive, makes her feel human, and she hates him for it.

When Brian looks at her, he sees her, unbiased, unflinching, doesn’t know her like John, love her like Freddie, dismiss her like Roger. He sees her, eye to eye, as a musician first and foremost; her value lies in her work and in greatness she’s  _earned_. Somehow he sees not who she was, not who she wants the world to see, he sees her for her work, he sees who she is. Through her golden haze of fame, the legacy she’s left behind and the one she’s still building, amid her icy veneer and the cracks of her touch starved heart, he sees Giselle Jones, twenty four, alone on the precipice of legendary; he, along with queen, agree to step up beside her.

Barely at twenty seven and she’s free falling, gathering stardust as she crashes back to Earth, to remind herself she’s human. So she puts her hopes and fears into her music, and the crowd sing along to the soundtrack of her spiralling, thinking it’s for them - it’s not, it never was, her music is  _hers;_ selfish and self indulgent, she’s at least earned that.

If she goes too far it doesn’t show in papers, in the real world, in the world outside of Bowie’s laughter, Elton’s feather’s, and oh,  _oh_ ,  _oh whatever Roger’s doing with his mouth_. She won’t remember it as anything more than a happy, hazy blur the next morning, but she feels  _alive_ right now. Since the beginning she’d been thrown in the deep end, a spectacle to watch as they make bets on whether she’ll sink of swim; she’s left EMI, moved to a new company that won’t keep her on a leash. She’s got free reign, unafraid of falling, of sinking, of crashing, so long as she can pick up the pieces before the paparazzi catch on.

They don’t. Her crystal veneer sits safely on the shelf the nights she goes hard, invites big names with bigger personalities into the safety of her home, away from the prying public. Star studded and exclusive, the dinners she hosts are just a chance to let loose amongst those who understand. She’s forgotten more life changing moments than most other people ever hope to have, concerts and faces of people she once idolised, singing her praises, bottles of champagne that could probably pay some people’s rent for a month, little white lines of powder that make the world as hazy as it sometimes feels, like syrup, like dreaming; this time drowning in honey of her own accord. Not alone this time, just lonely.

Maybe she swings too fast between  _nothing_ and  _everything_.

Maybe they can’t keep up.

Maybe the world melts when she asks it to, and when she’d come back, when it had reformed, nothing was the same.

Maybe because she thought she was falling, thought she was crashing, though she’d reached new heights without even meaning to; the top of the world is lonely.

**_“Don’t be so dramatic.”_ **

In this light, he’s golden too.

_“What? I didn’t even say anything.”_

He takes her hand where she’s sitting up in bed, the sheets having fallen away where she’s watching the sunset through the window, it’s like they’re the only ones left in their quiet corner of the world. When his skin touches hers, it’s startling for her to realise they’re alone, but she doesn’t actually feel lonely.

**_“Yeah, but I know that look.”_ **

_“What look?”_

She wonders idly, that when, amongst her blur of memories for the past few years, that the person who was once the bane of her existence managed to crawl into the cracks of her not quite calcified heart.

**_“Of course you have a look; like you’re just coming down from a really good high but you’ve realised that something about the music isn’t right and you start spiralling.”_ **

_“I don’t remember that happening.”_

A lie. She just doesn’t remember him being there. The music’s never right, the guests are too loud, the high too fleeting, but no-one else seems to realise; or maybe they can’t hear her for the haze… it’s not gold like it once was.  _‘Yes’_ men dropping off like flies; she doesn’t need their approval among the oceans of adoration each concert garners; the people paid to love her leave eventually.

Roger, by her side, laughs.

**_“You worry a lot when you’re sobering up. It’s cute.”_ **

_“I do not!”_

**_“‘Zelle, I’ve been there, believe me.”_ **

_“It’s kind of shitty that you think my worry’s cute.”_

**_“I think everything about you is cute.”_ **

_“You’re taking the piss.”_

**_“Usually, yeah, but not this time.”_ **

Pulling her back down to him, he grounds her. He doesn’t say it, but he understands, at least in part. He pushes back, but it’s a reminder than he’s there, pries apart her glitter-stained heart without meaning to, without realising. It takes time to learn to float without drowning amid the chaos of her life, but Roger seems to have one of those inflatable pool chairs, metaphorically speaking, and he helps her aboard.

Queen’s here, she makes herself remember, at the top of the world, by her side.

And Roger? He makes her feel human, and she’s pretty sure she loves him for it.


End file.
